will a new neck improve my tone?

[reverendrally]

How about a pic of the action at the 12th fret with the whole bass tuned down a step and then tuned up in standard tuning. A ruler measurement of the two would help too.

[Arx]

If the neck is really that floppy that a half step of tuning is making a drastic change to the action, (and nothing else is loose, etc), then it could easily be absorbing a lot of your high frequency. A stiffer neck will probably help.

On the electronic side of things, is your tone/volume control similar to the ones on the other bass where you used the pups? If the bass isn't active, the volume knob's resistance can affect the tone control's cutoff, and also the pickup's resonance.

For example, if your previous bass had a 500k, or 1M pot, and the new one has a 250k, it'll sound a bit less bright, even with no other changes.

If you're into monkeying with that stuff, you could just bypass it all, and see if it changes for the better.

-Nick

[pilotjones]

Originally Posted by Arx

...

Hey man, welcome back!

[Arx]

Originally Posted by pilotjones

Hey man, welcome back!

Thanks,

Yeah, It's been a while. I kind of back-burnered the bass projects for a while, but am finally getting around to finishing my junk-wood headless bass.

I should probably put up a build thread or something. Gotta document the ghetto construction techniques to help out the other under-equipped out there.

Some unsorted pics here:Index of /projects/headless

(I'm not going to link the images directly, since they're mostly pretty huge)

[BarkerBass]

thanks for the input, I am tempted to agree with your diagnosis but it looks like finances mean I have to shelve this bass for a while as I can't afford the replacement neck...

as for the electronics I've swapped the wiring around alot in this bass and currently have it set up with a 500K blend and 250K tone pot but in the past have bypassed the tone control and not noted any distinct high end change so as someone said earlier in the thread, the pickups can only work with what they're given,p whichI think, due to the neck, isn't much at all

Hopefully soon I'll be able to raise the £ and the permission from my wife (got married 2 weeks ago hence the sortness of free cash) to persue this further

[4OnTheFloor]

I am no expert by any means, nor am I claiming to be one. That being said, I have never played a lightweight bass that I enjoyed. It always seems that all available frequencies are "better" represented in a bass with more mass. It seems with lighter basses I have to EQ the amp carefully, while the heavier ones are "plug and play". The heavier bass will be punchier, snappier, and otherwise more responsive. I am aware that I am generalizing, but I am willing to bet that a solid dense piece of alder with a graphite reinforced quarter-sawn neck will sound "better" on first impression than a lighter counterpart with a flat-sawn neck.

[BarkerBass]

I know I've found long dead threads on TB very helpful in the past so I'm gonna add a few thoughts and findings in case anyone stumbles upon this in the future and I can be helpful.

So, we're 1 year down the line, and as a belated wedding present a friend of mine gave me his yamaha bb604, a lovely little (beat up) bass with... you guessed it, a 24 fret neck with just the right size heal to fit on my home made bass!

So...

not long after getting the bass home I did the transplant and bolted the yamaha's neck onto the body of my headless bass build and to cut a long story short the tone has changed day and night!

The new neck is stable and damn straight (such low action!) but the noticable thing is that while the bass still maintains a dark sound because of its mahogany body, it has a crispness and a growl that was lacking with the old neck.

I know this is now science and is only my experience so shouldn't be taken as a law of basses, necks and tone, BUT, for me, this bass is now very much usable, the tone is thick but with lots of nice bite and the new neck makes it a dream to play.

Here are some photos of the new neck etc;










(p.s I also modded the headless bridge because it made tuning a pain, so now t's string through with the mechanism removed)

cheers, BB

[ctmullins]

Just read through this thread for the first time. First, beautiful bass! Second, an easy test in these cases is to evaluate the tone of the instrument acoustically - unplugged. The pickups can only output what is input to them, so the sound that the strings actually produce is your baseline here. If it sounds good unplugged, then your problem is probably electronic. If it doesn't, then look to structural/mechanical issues.

Anyway, I'm not surprised that the new neck made such a difference. Glad you got it sorted!

[BarkerBass]

Originally Posted by ctmullins

Just read through this thread for the first time. First, beautiful bass! Second, an easy test in these cases is to evaluate the tone of the instrument acoustically - unplugged. The pickups can only output what is input to them, so the sound that the strings actually produce is your baseline here. If it sounds good unplugged, then your problem is probably electronic. If it doesn't, then look to structural/mechanical issues.

Anyway, I'm not surprised that the new neck made such a difference. Glad you got it sorted!

Cheers mate, thanks for the compliments, it's a labour of love and a lovely light wright so great for my occasional bad back.

I completely agree about the unplugged comment, the new neck instantly sounded snappier and with more sustain, the step after that was to find a pickup combo that worked well for me to translate the natural acoustic tone into an amplified tone I was happy to play.

The ramps have been removed so the pickups sit closer to the strings than before. It now has an MM humbuckers in the neck position and a jazz single coil at the bridge, for now it's a nice mix of chunky punchy neck tone and articulate burpy bridge that can be blended into a tight snappy funk machine tone with lots of snap for slap